The Weekly Law Reports
[2025] 3 WLR 543
Court of Appeal
Rex (National Council for Civil Liberties) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
[2025] EWCA Civ 571
2024 Dec 4, 5; 2025 May 2
Underhill, Dingemans, Edis LJJ
Crime— Public order— Public assembly— Police’s statutory power to impose conditions on public processions or assemblies to prevent “serious disruption” to life of community— Secretary of State’s statutory power to make regulations amending provisions regarding meaning of “serious disruption”— Whether Secretary of State empowered to lower threshold set by “serious disruption” requirement— Whether regulations made by Secretary of State ultra vires such power—
Public Order Act 1986 (c 64), ss 12(2A)(12), 14(2A)(11)
—
Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/655), regs 2, 3
Natural justice— Consultation by public body— Fairness— Secretary of State voluntarily engaging with policing bodies regarding legislative proposals— Whether such engagement constituting formal consultation so as to attract requirements of procedural fairness